All I Need

Chapter Twelve

Taylor's P.O.V

Waking up in Karlies arms seems to feel better and better every time I get the chance to do it. Sometimes I feel absolutely invincible and that I can do anything just from waking up in my wife's loving embrace. "Karlie..." I whisper as I poke her face and she tries to swat my hand away. I giggle softly. "Karlie." I state more firmly this time but she only hugs me closer and cuddles into me, still in a deep sleep. "Karlie Elizabeth Swift-Kloss let me go right now before I scream and wake up all of our kids." Her eyes snap open as she glares at me.
"No need to alert the kids," she states releasing me. I smile and poke out my tongue before grabbing a sweatshirt that happens to be Karlie's and heading downstairs to start coffee and make waffles, since Becca asked for them last night. I get almost the whole way down when the phone rings. Karlie rushes to meet me knowing instantly what a phone call at this time of the day means. "K-Karlie..." I cry as she rushes down to me and reaches over and picks up the phone. "H-Hello..." I cuddle into her not wanting it to be true. "No this is her wife." I look up and see Karlie speaking but my head is spinning but Karlie continues to hold tight to me. "Okay thank-you." All of a sudden it hits me and I look at Karlie. "Taylor..." she says as I back away from her, feeling the walls of the apartment closing in. "Tay...don't please." She begs as I continue to walk backwards out of reach. It hits me that I am suddenly motherless. The one stable person I've had in my life for my whole life, the one person who I can thank for having Ryan and for helping me with Allie when Karlie lost her memory that one person is gone, forever. I can't take it anymore as I collapse onto the floor of the apartment. My eyesight blurs as I see the outline of Karlie rush towards me and I grasp her as tight as I can not letting go. She begins to whisper into my ear. "It's okay, I'm here. I got you. It's okay..." I'm about to bite her head off when it hits me that she is telling me that it's okay for me to cry, to let it all out. Instead I press myself as close as I can to her and she lets me. I guess on some level she has been expecting this and it's not a shock to see me reacting so bad but I can't help but act the way that I do. My mom is my hero, she protected me as a child when I was bullied and now she is gone. The last thing that she said to me was, "Taylor, when I'm gone you have to let me go." I didn't understand what that meant when she said it, but I understand it now.

*FLASHBACK*

"Austin, stop kicking her. Taylor for god sakes you are a grown woman get up off my floor." I frown and look at my mother sitting in her bed at the hospital, she is frail and looks older than she is. "But mom..." She looks at me as Austin laughs and extends a hand to me. We both know how close the end is but neither of us really want to admit that this will be the last time we ever spend together as a family. "Come here kids." We walk and sit on opposite sides of the bed as dad hovers beside her head, occasionally stroking her hair. "Dad?" I state looking at him.
"Yeah Tay-bear?" He says as he looks at me.
"Tell us a story." Everyone knows that dad is the best storyteller. He looks down at mom and she nods as Austin gets comfortable and I turn to him as he starts. "Well I guess the best one for right now would be the day that we told you that you were going to have a brother or a sister Taylor, you were so excited and you went running around the house, opening every door trying to find them. I remember looking at your mom and saying 'should we tell her?' your mom just said, 'no she's curious even if you tell her she will still try to find the baby.' I sighed and let your mom decide the best way and after almost half an hour you fell asleep because you had run all around the house. Then your mom came back to me and said, 'well I think we are awesome at this. Should we go to bed?' I remember thinking that she was so right." I looked at Austin and his face was screwed up in disgust. "Eww dad, we don't need to know." He states as I laughed and mom states.
"Well how do you think you were made Austin?" He looks at mom and shrugs.
"I know I just didn't need the visual image to go with it." Dad laughs and then turns to look at mom, I can see the love there and it makes me so happy that they got back together. They are honestly made for each other. "Come on Austin, let's leave your mom and sister." He nods and stands while I'm shocked. Family time was really just a chance for mom to get me to come and visit her so she could talk to me.